African immigrants are more educated than most — including people born in US

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Lots of the news from sub-Saharan Africa is about war, famine, poverty or political upheaval. So it's understandable if many Americans think most Africans who immigrate to the United States are poorly educated and desperate.

That's the impression that President Donald Trump left with his comments to members of Congress opposing admission of immigrants from "shithole countries" in Africa and elsewhere.

But research tells another story.

While many are refugees, large numbers are beneficiaries of the "diversity visa program" aimed at boosting immigration from underrepresented nations. And on average, African immigrants are better educated that people born in the U.S. or the immigrant population as a whole.

"It's a population that's very diverse in its educational, economic and English proficiency profile," said Jeanne Batalova, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington and co-author of a report last year on sub-Saharan African immigrants in the U.S. "People came for a variety of reasons and at various times."

Overall, their numbers are small compared with other immigrant groups but have risen significantly in recent years. The U.S. immigrant population from sub-Saharan Africa (49 countries with a total population of more than 1.1 billion) grew from 723,000 to more than 1.7 million between 2010 and 2015, according to a new report by New American Economy, a Washington-based research and advocacy group. Still, they make up just half a percent of the U.S. population.

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Drawing from U.S. surveys and Census Bureau data, the report found that the majority come from five countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa.

The Pew Research Center reported that African immigrants are most likely to settle in the South or Northeast, and that the largest numbers -- at least 100,000 -- are found in Texas, New York, California, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia. Many African refugees have also moved to or have been resettled in states such as Minnesota and South Dakota.

The Refugee Act of 1980 made it easier for people fleeing war zones to resettle in the U.S., and today there are tens of thousand of refugees from Somalia, Sudan and Congo. About 22 percent of African immigrants are refugees, according to Andrew Lim, associate director of research at New American Economy.

At the same time, the diversity visa program -- also known as the visa lottery -- has opened the door to immigrants from more peaceful places. Of the sub-Saharan immigrants who have become legal permanent residents, 17 percent came through the program, compared with 5 percent of the total U.S. immigrant population, according to Batalova.

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